Laboratory of Somatics for Architecture and Landscape (LSAAP)

Our collaborative partner, María Auxiliadora Gálvez, describes her practice of Somatic Architecture

Glimpses of 'Fairground Ride Dizziness-Choir'

An afternoon full of ideas, thoughts, and lectures about dizziness and togetherness.

Fairground Ride Dizziness-Choir: Students' Texts

Students of the Institute of Language Arts engage with the dizziness of the present. What stands still, what spins loose?

Defining the Novel

My definition of a novel is therefore a practical one: I believe in the usability (Nutzbarkeit, Brauchbarkeit) of novels, be it as inspirational sources, as sources for new ideas, new perspectives, or even as simple instructions. To this end though, dialogue is essential.

Interview with Klaus Zeyringer: Fictions on the Other Side of our Known Reality

That we are currently faced with this “other side” situation fits very well with your ideas and parameters. You can reconstruct what we interpret as real into a different reality.

Song for my Fears

It is fear – not anxiety – that makes me dizzy these days.

We Fight To Build A Free World!

In a public conversation, the artist Jonathan Horowitz and the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans will share insights on their artistic and curatorial work. Starting from Horowitz’ exhibition We Fight to Build a Free World! at the Jewish Museum in New York, they will investigate the potential art offers to fight racism and anti-Semitism.

Interview with Shifra Sagy: On Narratives, our own and those of others

Our research shows us that, on the contrary, knowing another narrative does not interfere with identifying with the one from your family or collective. When you get to know the complicated and complex world, you can become even more confident within your own story of the world. 

Sense of Coherence

The Sense of Coherence (SoC) is a concept that can be applied at different system levels, at an individual level, a group (family), on organisations and societal level. 

Salutogensis: Health as Movement

According to Aaron Antonovsky health was seen as a movement in a continuum on an axis between total ill-health (dis-ease) and total health (ease). 

THE FUTURE IS IN QUESTION

I am following an invitation. Here we start.

FUNFAIRS AND CRITIQUE

Do I need to critique 'der Schwindel' or is 'der Schwindel' already a critique of the situation that produces it – the most trenchant critique my sense of balance and my perceptive faculties can muster at the given moment? Hold on, stop!

Navigating Dizziness Together

As the artistic research project Navigating Dizziness Together started mid-May, this video-lecture is an introduction to the field to provide background for the definition of dizziness and further proceedings of the artistic research.

Dizziness: A Feeling of Disorientation

My body felt spongy and disoriented. I no longer had a sense of the size of the room or where anyone was within it, I didn’t know where the walls were, or the distance between my elbow and hip, my chin and the floor.

Dizziness—A Resource?

Dizziness–A Resource? Two hypotheses are hidden in the title of this artistic research. First, in this context, the term dizziness is understood in a broader sense. Second, the artistic research claims that states of dizziness should be considered a resource.

Dizziness—A Resource: The Reader

Indeed, dizziness is more than feeling dizzy. Contributions by artists, researchers from experimental sciences as well as cultural studies, and philosophers trace dizziness not only as a phenomenon of physiological, emotional, and cognitive processes but highlight the transversal nature of the phenomenon.

Observation 11

Words exist because of meaning.

Navigating in the Unknown

I had to think of the four phases of execution that I developed within my emergence ontology, as I wanted to distance myself from the Aristotelian teleology that is found within any theory of action.

HASENHERZ Practicing the Compossible Space

The theory of the compossible space is set into action in the artistic practice ‘HASENHERZ or the Pleasures of the Moving Image and Word’. ‘HASENHERZ’ is both a work of art and an instrument for examining artworks.

Glimpses of ‘Between Images’

'Between Images – Contemporary, artistic perspectives on post-war society' at Brücke-Museum, Berlin

Mode d'emploi

Starting with the attempt to call the phenomenon of dizziness by its proper name, this book brings together diverse voices considering the potential of this in-between state from multiple perspectives and in view of different disciplines.

Collective Modes of Destruction

Writer Anna Kim's lecture retraces the life of photographer Edith Tudor-Hart (née Edith Suschitzky 1908, in Vienna, died 1973 in Brighton), who worked as a Soviet agent and photographed workers and street children from Vienna and London to give a face to poverty and social disadvantage.

Hippocampus

1564 the famous Italian anatomist and surgeon Julius Caesar Aranzi discovered a small structure when dissecting a human brain. He named it hippocampus, because its form reminded him of that of a sea horse.

A Short Note on Kierkegaard and Dizziness

Anxiety is altogether different from fear and similar concepts that refer to something definite, whereas anxiety is freedom’s actuality as the possibility of possibility. Anxiety may be compared with dizziness.

History in Between

The project for Haus der Geschichte Österreich (House of Austrian History) encompasses a photo series and a series of videos. Following the construction process for the new museums’ space in the historical backdrop of Neue Burg, the former Emperor’s quarters.

Dizziness Is My Name: Sound Installation

I’ve heard surviving pilots tell, that free fall triggers a feeling of confusion between the self and the aircraft. While falling, people may sense themselves as being things, while things may sense that they are people.

Balancing Togetherness: Recordings

Recordings from the conference 'Balancing Togetherness'

Semantics of Dizziness

Dizziness is the name of what disrupts communication, understanding, comprehension. It suspends beyond all certainty. Hence dizziness is not a notion as it gets in the way of comprehending.

Dizziness as a Choreographic Element

For my graduation work at Ruhr-University Bochum I try to visualize how an invisible, chaotic and disturbing phenomenon like dizziness may become visible for an audience.

The Arsenic Eaters

The book 'The Arsenic Eaters' investigates the widespread historical belief that the consumption of arsenic, one of the most potent mineral poisons, is beneficial to one’s health. Accordingly, many poison eaters were found among rural population in the eastern parts of the Alps

Der Taumel – eine Ressource?

Lecture by Ruth Anderwald at ‘Meran 20:17, Zukunftslabor der Jugendarbeit’

Utrata równowagi: Exhibition Views

Exhibition views from Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw.

Taumel Issue 7

When dizzy we cannot distinguish between inside and outside.

Dizziness—A Resource: Dizziness and the Compossible Space in Research-Creation

‘Dizziness’ implies notions of physical and emotional disequilibrium, staggering, confusion, uncertainty, and turmoil. This article discusses dizziness as a possible resource for creativity including the concept of the ‘compossible space’.

Spatial Confusion. Episodes from the Experimental History of Vertigo

Keeping our bodily balance is a continuous performance, including the effort to keep the erect posture against gravity. However, since this performance remains strictly subliminal we become aware of the state of equilibrium only in the event of disruption: in the very moment we loose our balance, stumble and fall, or more generally, when the relation between the body and the surrounding world is irritated, disturbed, or interrupted as it is characteristic in the state of vertigo.

Highmat

Based on the assumption that there is a human tendency toward seeking ecstatic feelings and risk, resulting in dangerous outcomes and potentially addiction, Gerald Koller trains individuals in local communities, citizen organizations (COs), and regional government programs to develop responsible behavior in risky settings.

Creating Art: An Experience Sampling Study in the Domain of Moving Image Art

This study investigated work-related behaviors and feelings in the process of creating art. In a collaborative effort by creativity researchers and artistic researchers, we invited artists to create a short film or video for an international art competition and monitored them for 2 weeks while producing the artwork.

Staggering Through Tragedy

If one notes the amount of staggering performed or stammered by characters in Waiting for Godot, it can be quite surprising. In fact, few plays contain characters that spend as much time stumbling or tottering about the stage. It is almost as if they are sailors in the midst of a violent squall, but this is not the case.

Dizziness. Navigating the Unknown Exhibition Views

Exhibition views from Kunsthaus Graz

Queering Dizziness

There is a lot of “queering something” these days, although Queer Theory is certainly not yet part of the major scientific or philosophical discourse. I will argue that dizziness is not just another concept, which needs queering, but that dizziness is fundamentally linked to queerness.

Agents of Confusion! Recordings

These are the recordings of our one-day symposium, that brought together artistic and cross-disciplinary research on dizziness, with speakers from the fields of philosophy, visual arts, creativity research, psychbiology, medicine, architecture and cultural studies in the form of screenings, artists’ talks, lectures and discussions.

Dizziness in Compossible Spaces

How did we succeed to make dizziness a sort of commonplace? After several cross-disciplinary gatherings in the course of the research project ‘Dizziness–A Resource’, it became clear that the introduction of the concept of dizziness into divergent research fields created a compossible space, formed by our common interest in the experience of and reflection on dizziness.

Filming in Tomar

Filming Manueline Architecture in Protugal: The Manueline architectural style tried to incorporate all the discoveries of the new worlds of that time and within it all the unknown as well.

Dizziness — A Resource

‘Dizziness’ is an English translation of the German word ‘Taumel’, which implies a broader semantic field including notions of physical and emotional disequilibrium, staggering, confusion, uncertainty, and turmoil.

The Personality and Motivation of a Dizzy Creator

But what characterizes these people who defy norms, who disregard conventional boundaries, institutionalized norms, and accepted reward and evaluation systems – people who, in fact, not only view conventional boundaries as ridiculous but do not see boundaries to start with?

Trying to Survive

Fourteen roly-poly toys start to move about by means of an unknown power and can no longer be stopped. With ever increasing speed they drop directly into the unknown and disappear accompanied by the loud noise of explosions.

It's all in your … ear.

Lecture by Matti Mintz at ‘Navigating the Unknown – Fears and Pleasures of Dizziness‘.

Dizziness Is My Name

HD-video and 3D-sound installation for the opening of the Economic Symposium at European Forum Alpbach.

Taumel Issue 6

My agents of confusion!

Personalities of Boundary Crossers

Lecture by Maya Shmailov at ‘Navigating the Unknown – Fears and Pleasures of Dizziness‘.

Dizziness Is My Name Soundtrack

This is a fragment of the soundtrack that will accompany our film "Dizziness Is My Name".

Taumel Issue 5

The Atlas depicts a short moment of balance.

Compost is

nature’s best mulches and soil.

Creative Dizziness in Artists’ Working Process

Lecture by Mathias Benedek at ‘Navigating the Unknown – Fears and Pleasures of Dizziness‘.

Winner of the Art Competition ‘Living in a Dizzying World’

The Main Award is inclusion of the artwork in an international group exhibition at Kunsthaus Graz.

Glimpses of ‘Navigating the Unknown’

Photos of 'Navigating the Unknown – Fears and Pleasures of Dizziness' at CCA-Tel Aviv

Interim Report on ‘Living in a Dizzying World’

A central goal of the artistic research project ‘Dizziness–A Resource’ is to gain a better understanding of the role of dizziness in the artistic process. As one approach towards this goal, Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond teamed up with psychologists from the University of Graz to conduct an empirical investigation.

Taumel Issue 4

You are not here.

Le sas (French)

Sluice chamber or a “space in between” (where things become compossible and ambiguous). It’s an “interzone”.

Syntagm and Paradigm

These two dimensions are often presented as 'axes', where the horizontal axis is the syntagmatic and the vertical axis is the paradigmatic.

The unexplained “Rest” — Dizziness as a Resource

"I saw the Statue of Liberty, and — this is weird — I saw it, and I just had it”, he said. He swiftly decided that he wanted to “spin around this thing."

Affects and Percepts

The artist creates blocs of percepts and affects, but the only law of creation is that the compound must stand up on its own.

Pardes

In her work 'Pardes' (Orchard) Yael Bartana takes a very personal look at how Westerners seek personal enlightenment by appropriating traditional rituals.

‘Resource’ and its Etymology

This etymological kinship with water seems to be another hint to the watery depths through which we have to make our “way”, our “poros”, when we experience dizziness.

Gravity and Dizziness

Gravity lends weight to all objects and causes the tides, but it can also be used to connote seriousness and depth, or a metaphorical weight or tide. If gravity is another word for seriousness, lightness connotes levity, humour and flippancy.

Observation 10

Living in a Dizzying World – Art Competition & Survey

The understanding of the specifics of the artistic work process is still incomplete. Philosophers like Maurice Merleau-Ponty (on Paul Cézanne) or Gilles Deleuze (on Francis Bacon in 'The Logic of Sensation') have ventured into that realm. This competition is an attempt by a team of artists and scientists whom together are trying to come to a more profound and holistic understanding of the artistic process and its needs.

Many Have Gone On These Bends

Break camp, break in, break the mould.

In Conversation with François Jullien Making Ambiguity Fertile is the Present Mission of Thought

At this stage of the “just before”, of the potential, the ambiguous, the non-separation – the work of art avoids to come about, to take place because if it takes place, it is only this and not as well that anymore, it becomes exclusive. The great oeuvre keeps itself at work, because it keeps itself at this stage of the “just before”, “upstream” of a definitive actualisation, which would follow its definition.

Observation 9

Inside/Outside and The Ground beneath Our Feet

Only since contemporary philosophy could compossibility also mean that opposites, several mutually contradictory worlds or heterogeneous truths, are possible within the same universe and without necessarily entailing separation, distinction or any dichotomy between them.

Ambiguity

From ambigō ("wander; waver, hesitate")

Communitas

The community isn't a mode of being, much less a ‘making’ of the individual subject.

Lecture Performance

Lecture Performance by Robert Prosser at Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna. May 22, 2015.

HASENHERZ High Wire

HASENHERZ-Screening with Catherine Yass at On the Borders of the Unknown, April 25, 2015.

Dizzy on Stage. Trance in Anthropology and Practice

It's one thing to write a text, but another to read it out loud and in front of an audience, where one becomes vulnerable. On the other hand, through this act of reaching out, potentially, it touches people more directly than through the written word. Voice is limited to a place, at a specific time. It's intimate: one speaks, the other listens.

Musikfestival Rottweil Instruction for Use

Excerpt of the concert Instruction for Use at Musikfestival Rottweil, Germany. June 18, 2015.

Observation 8

Instability to Provoke Reorganisation

Improvisation for me means to steadily scan my environment with all my senses in order to be able to react. This monitoring was a movement or awareness in as many directions as possible.

HASENHERZ Failed States

HASENHERZ-Screening with Henry Hills at Navigating in the Unknown, Monday 11 May, 2015.